Islamabad :Â Pakistanis are hopping mad following the ban on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter and the blocking of Blackberry services in the wake of a controversy over a contest featuring blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Mohammed.

Raza Rumi, the editor of a popular ezine, described the banning of Blackberry services as “absolute madness”.

However, on the other hand, the hardline Islamists are out in the streets protesting the anti-Prophet Mohammed cartoons competition that is denigrating their religion, they say.

The crackdown on websites with “blasphemous” and “sacrilegious” content began after the Lahore High Court directed authorities to block Facebook on Wednesday.

“The zealots want us to go back to the stone age. These decisions should be reversed at once. There are other ways of dealing with this issue and not by an absolute ban of connectivity in the 21st century. In any case, it is not easy to ‘ban’ stuff in this day and age.

“Many Internet users have found other ways of bypassing this embargo,” Rumi wrote on his ezine.

Rumi cross-posted a message by blogger Ali Shah, who wrote: “They have banned the entire Facebook domain in Pakistan (and) barred Blackberry services for one ignorant rant? They have burnt the entire village for one bad guy and we must stand up to it”.

The Lahore High Court ordered the blocking of Facebook till May 31 while acting on a petition filed by the Muslim Lawyers Forum against a page on the social networking website featuring a contest for blasphemous caricatures.

Rumi also posted a sarcastic poem that propagated the banning of Facebook, email, Twitter, books, paper, pen and even “thinking”.

“As Muslims, let’s be outraged and have shut down or at least boycott the site that was sacrilegious… then close or at least boycott the pen/then close or at least boycott speech/then close or at least boycott gesture/then close or at least boycott thinking,” said the poem.

Adil Najam, editor of another popular ezine, said he was saddened to write a post on the issue.

“I hope that Facebook administration will remove the page. Not because of any ‘banning’ movement and not because of the Lahore High Court. Just because the page and the idea behind the page is inflammatory and offensive,” Najam wrote.

“Regardless of what your belief or religion might be, to throw out offensive and hateful vitriolic for the simple and primary purpose of hurting someone else’s feelings â€“ when you know that (a) those feelings will be hurt and (b) when hurting those feelings is really the only purpose of doing what you are doing – is inhuman, cruel, and clearly offensive,” he said.

“If Facebook does not recognise that, then it knows nothing either about ‘social’ or about ‘networking’ and certainly not about ‘community’,” he added.

“The one thing I am absolutely positive of, is that the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) would not have done what we are doing now: making an international public spectacle of ourselves.

“Most likely he would have just walked away and ignored (the ‘look the other way when someone throws garbage at you’ model)…”

“… He might have negotiated with Facebook on the basis of their own stated rules… he might have reasoned with detractors (the discourse and discussion model).

“Nearly certainly Mohammed would have handled it with grace, with composure, and maybe even with a touch of good humour,” Najam added.

Another blogger suggested that if people are offended by the “Prophet cartoon thing, here’s an easy solution for you: don’t search ‘Muhammad + cartoons’. You’ll be fine”.

30 thoughts on “Pakistan seethes on Twitter, Blackberry ban”

Dear Ali
I am not sure what are you referring to. I have never argued for ban on ‘scarf’. I think that banning things does not make any sense. In any case, the internet has not been blasphemous – only individuals who are intolerant and insensitive to Muslims have erred – but this does not mean that we deny internet freedoms in this day and age?
What say you

I am referring the article on Pak Tea House in which Hijab Ban in France was endorsed.

There’s no absolute freedom both on the internet or world. Child Porn is considered a high crime in various societies and on Internet. Even Facebook does not allow child pornography. Now Child Porn is not hurting anyone then why there is no free Internet? Why there are rules against it?

I think bans provide free publicity to hate campaigns, such as the one being run on Facebook.

I wonder if those who filed a case in court petitioned Facebook first against the offensive content. The page might have been removed on account of ‘terms of use violation’ and without the inconvenience caused to thousands of Facebook users in Pakistan.

The so called liberals with Muslim names are damaging the name of Islam more than the so called Islamists or fundamentalist. There is one Javed Akhtar here in India who has been used to target fair muslim demands while people like this keep mum when open attack like the “Day” are carried out. One of my friends sent me link to a Urdu page which pertained to the Jews and mind it, this wikipedia page had its ‘edit’ tab removed. Curiocity took me to almost all Jewish/Zionist/Hebrew pages and I found that none of them have this ‘edit’ tab while. If the Facebook is not intending to remove the community and so is the YouTube which have been reported to be co-creation of a Muslim (for what reason this Muslim link to YT is referred is to be known by many) the act of restricting is not bad. If people like you are so much for freedom, does it mean you allow others to abuse things dear to you while a simple possibility of someone editing the ‘facts’ you post on public domain like wikipedia is removed. If one argues that you need to be connected, then why only the West connection. If someone says that the Holocaust was fake, why there are laws to deny this right and then talk of freedom. Weaker and compromised talk of the Jews having made a country of their own but why then same people call names to similar acts by others. If you can persuade the Facebooks and You Tubes to be sensitive without ‘tagging’ every act of Muslims as Islamist etc, it is not going to bring peace. If a good number of people say they feel hurt, a fringe group cannot be given liberty to carry this out in the name of freedom. Those who seek West here at home in South Asia would do better if they live at the West Proper and if they are accepted as one of them there, nobody has any problem. Arent people like you seeking the West here while those who want to retain things their own in the West like the others, are faulted for not having ‘integrated’. The “In search of the unsearchable: O, my soul! where would you find your house?” with the title of your blog shows that you are seeking stability but the path is flawed. One need not be critical of others to find that, instead, if you continue finding faults, the malaise depens. Even if we go by the one-person-one-vote policy, the demand for restricting the sites outnumber that of people perturbed by ‘Blackberry” ban 10 is to 1. Please remember that the ‘values’ people talk about are the things they think are right which includes such behaviour like having many pet dogs while asking a alms seeker to work and earn. The second part is very right but the unnecessary ‘pets’ are responsible for the state of affairs. Try understand why only one set of ‘values’? It is just for business. Our own Beena Sarwar cribs about a ‘Farsi zadah’ national anthem of Pakistan while in her own “qibla and ka’ba” India the connection of singing a not very secular song in not very known language is not on her radar. People like this might get something in return for providing the ‘labels’ for promoting the business of ‘liberated’ world but unfortunately this is not aiding in keeping peace anywhere. The Palestines, Kashmeers, Afghanistans on one hand and Sri Lanks and Koreas on the other. If Jews get a home for claiming the word in their ‘Book’, Kashmeeris dont get for ‘Secularism’ and Afghans suffer for export of ‘ideologies’ from outsiders while 10% Tamils are not supposed to have their areas even the national army and no Korean ships are supposed to sink even accidentally, what one must expect is “no peace”. My sincere request to you is that do not be pawn in the hands of these ‘business’ people just for you having been denies a facility. If the reasons are bad, try persuading the others as well. Not possible, try being ‘there’ first hand instead of expecting the other 99.9% people to bend for you. This smacks of a ‘feudal’ mentality.

Those who use Muahammad’s name like any common Christian doing the same should come to India and find how many prefixes are attached to small people claimed to be Kings you might of not heard. The suggestion of looking other way and using words like ‘they’ shows where the loyalties lie!! However, I would challenge these very people by asking them that why they support or do not oppose the ‘Holocaust Denial’ laws? We all need to remember that ‘we are identified by the company we keep and will be counted and treated with the people we live with’. If someone targets us in rage, mad or sane, we are not innocent. The basic human duty of prevention and warning needs to be adhered to!!

I do not accept the idea of ban as well but majority of Pakistanis are happy with it so I accept and respect their decision. You should too. And saying this ban gave more popularity to the page, this is a rubbish argument. The matter was not to advertise or hide the page but to let other knows that Muslims unlike other faith do give God more respect than anyone else. This is the reaction of protest that the admin of facebook page removed it

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